Ginobili tries mask, says no thanks

Manu Ginobili has a message for Spurs fans sporting fake bandages in homage to his fractured nose: Don’t put them away just yet.

For the first time Saturday, Ginobili practiced with a plastic mask covering his face, instead of the crude splint the team’s medical staff had fashioned for him to wear across the bridge of his nose in the final three games of the Dallas series.

Ginobili’s verdict: No mask. The splint stays.

“Too bulky,” Ginobili said of the mask. “It blocks my vision. I don’t see myself wearing that kind of thing.”

A lot of work went into the mask, which will now probably end up on the trash heap. To fit it to Ginobili’s face, doctors used sensors to create a precise 3-D image of his mug, then built it to those specifications.

“It took a couple hours of work,” Ginobili said. “Technology in this case didn’t help.”

Ginobili, who was injured by an accidental elbow from Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki in Game 3, says he will try the mask one more time in practice Sunday. He doesn’t anticipate wearing it in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals against Phoenix on Monday.

Instead, Ginobili will go back to a low-tech tape-and-bandage splint.

“I think it’s going to stay with me for the rest of the playoffs,” Ginobili said.